Building A Studio And Battling Imposter Syndrome

A lime green carpet shouldn’t be the reason you walk away from a dream. Shelby takes us inside the leap to open Little Rock Creative—a new photography studio and hybrid office built to raise the bar for content creators in west Little Rock—while celebrating ten years of The Marketing Broker and nearly fourteen years in entrepreneurship. This is a candid, behind-the-scenes look at why standards matter, how to spot the right space beneath the chaos, and what it really feels like to scale while the calendar is already full.

We break down the practical choices behind building creator-friendly infrastructure: choosing a layout that speeds production, designing a front studio and back office that support hybrid teams, and setting up a space where headshots, branding shoots, and video content can actually flow. Shelby shares hard-won lessons from past side ventures that fizzled fast, and how a new approach—mapping costs, pacing decisions, and protecting flexibility—kept this move focused and sustainable.

The emotional arc is real and relatable: excitement sparked the idea, anxiety followed close behind, and imposter syndrome tried to steal the mic. From sleepless nights to a day-one recording in the new studio, Shelby talks through the self-coaching that keeps momentum alive: acknowledge progress, honor standards, and let community support be fuel instead of pressure. If you’re a small business owner, marketer, photographer, or creative juggling risk and responsibility, you’ll find practical insight and a nudge to claim your wins out loud.

If this story hits home, share it with a founder who needs a push. Subscribe for more honest marketing and entrepreneurship conversations, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Transcript

Setting The Scene

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Hey, what's up, guys? It is Shelby, your marketing broker on the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. Thanks for tuning in again to another episode. You guys know that I love doing this. This is one of my favorite parts of my job educating small business owners about marketing their business and how we can all be successful in digital marketing. Today's gonna be a little bit different. Um, it's not necessarily a lesson, it's not necessarily something that you're gonna be able to take away and um apply it to your business, and maybe you will, but I wanted to share just a little bit of a story of something new in my life um right now, and I wanted to kind of go through that journey so you guys know as an entrepreneur, even with 14 years of experience, I still go through all the same things as people that just start new businesses. So I um am celebrating 10 years of the marketing broker. If you're listening, it's February 2026. Um, you may be listening to it now or later. Um, and I'm going on 14 years of entrepreneurship and business ownership. So since I was 18, I have no other experience in my life. I've never worked for anybody else. I don't know what that's like. Um I'm kind of okay with it, but also um I'm used to taking big risk and just stepping out there and doing something new. So in the marketing broker, it is a full-service digital marketing agency. So I usually work from the house. Um, and I have a great I had a great office at the house, and I've always been a virtual worker. All of my employees are virtual, and um now we can all be hybrid, and I'm so excited. I opened up a new office very close to my house, but the most important part of this office is the new studio. Came up with the name Little Rock Creative, and it is a photography studio for other photographers here in town. They can come in, shoot headshots, do branding shoots. Um, why did I do this though, right? You're like, oh my gosh, you have all these other things going on. Why do you need to do this too? Well, I was tired of giving other people my money and it not being up to my standards. I'm very, I have very high expectations for myself, for my employees, for my team, for my child, for my clients. And so I haven't found a photography studio here in my area that really was up to my standard and something that I felt was missing on this side of my city. Um, there's a lot of them in the downtown area, but I'm like more of in the west area of it. And so I wanted to kind of give that opportunity to local photographers, content creators, videographers, just a place for them to come and create here in Little Rock. And I will say at first I was very um, I tried to be very frugal and also wanted to make sure that everything was perfect because back in the day I have started a couple of businesses or side businesses from what I'm doing now, and they were epic failures. I mean, within like 30 to 60 days, I knew it wasn't gonna work out, but then I was stuck in contracts, I was stuck in leases, and it just wasn't good. So this time around, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna map everything out, I'm gonna do everything differently than what I had in the past, and I think that it paid off, but also I kind of felt like that old Shelby tendency coming back too. I found the perfect spot after looking around for about 30 days, and it ended up being like right down from my office, but it had lime green carpet, guys. Like everything was lime green, it had gross color walls like gray, it had grease everywhere, um, it had some slat walls in the front, but I knew as soon as I walked in, like this was a space because I'm all about those vibes. I know exactly what I was going for, and it was set up perfectly. So I've got the studio in the front, then I have my marketing broker office in the back where I can work as well as any of my girls that work for me can come up here and work as well. And I just think it's so important to share with you guys that over the last 60 days that I've been working on this project, I've gone through a lot of um emotions to say the least. So my first emotion was excitement, and then that excitement gets replaced with anxiety like really fast. Like I'm pretty sure I haven't slept very well in the last at least two weeks because I'm just up at night, like, have I remembered this? Okay, have I remembered that? Oh, I'm like giving money here and I'm giving money there, and it's also my 10-year anniversary this month, and so why did I do it all in the same time where all my money's going out at one time? And you know, I just stay in my head a lot, especially late at night. Why is that, guys? Why is it always late at night that we're in our heads about things, right? And I think it's because all the distractions of the day are gone, right? Our phone's not going off, we have our TV on, we're kind of watching some dumb reality thing, or at least that's me. But ultimately, I have now gone through these emotions of excitement, anxiety, fear, and imposter syndrome, guys. The imposter imposter syndrome is so bad. And I'm like, do I deserve to do this? Do I really think that this is gonna be successful? Like, why do I think that I can do this? Like, what if someone else did this? Or what if someone takes my idea and does it better? Or and and it's just over and over and over again, and I'm like second guessing myself. But while I'm on like doing this podcast, this is my day one in this office, and my first podcast that I am recording in this office, and I am looking at myself going, You did it. Like I am proud of you, like, good job. You deserve to be here. I'm trying to coach myself out of that imposter syndrome because it's so easy for us to fall into that. As business owners, we are focused on what's the next sell? What's the next win? What's the next move? How can I be better than this person? How can I create this lifestyle for me? How can I not let these people down? How can I not let these people down? How can I balance it? How can I do all these things that we just don't look in the mirror and go, you know what? Bitch, I'm proud of you. Like, good job. You got this. Like you've succeeded. Look at where you've come. And, you know, to that point, it's like I'm I'm celebrating 10 years this month, and I'm throwing a huge party next week. And I'm so excited about having my OG clients and my friends and family and current clients to really come and celebrate me. And then I was like putting my speech together, and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like all these people are gonna come and they're gonna like listen to me talk and they're gonna think that I'm like, you know, really smart. I mean, heck, y'all are listening to my podcast right now, and people that read my book, like, I'm just like, wow, these people actually are being me that I am to other people, and it's just so cool to be able to so be supported by um a community, by friends and family, and well, not necessarily family, more friends and um past clients and people I've networked with and referred to and stuff like that. So I just really wanted this podcast to be all about like 14 years in, I'm still making big decisions, I'm still making big moves. I've hired three new people, and I am all about wanting to share with you guys the authentic side of being a business owner. Yes, marketing is fun, creating is front, fun, educating is fun, but ultimately being a business owner is stressful, y'all, and we have to get through it. We have to support each other. And that brings me to like because of you guys, I am able to continue doing this. You are one of the reasons that I make podcasts, I do the videos, I'm posting on social media, I'm writing the books, and I want you to know that I appreciate you every single time that you listen to this, that you like something, you engage with it. And if this is engaging, like send it to someone else that could use some encouragement and know that we are all in the same boat, and if we just keep supporting each other, we will find success in the end. So if you want to go listen to another podcast, go buy my book, um, check out my social media, my TikTok, my Instagram, my LinkedIn, my Facebook. I'm sounding like an old person now, but I'll catch you on the next one, guys. Have a good one.